10 reasons I ‘dislike’ Facebook

As we’re getting to know each other, there’s something you should know about me.

I don’t do Facebook.

Sorry Mr Zuckerberg, this isn’t a slanderous dig at your work, just my personal opinion, formed over the last decade or so of being a Facebook addict – now in recovery.

Why? That is a question I find myself answering several times a week as I am constantly asked why I’ve gone cold turkey on the platform most (but not all) of my friends use to keep in the loop.
It’s not always been this way; jump back to the hazy fog of my twenties and every party, festival, gig, meal, heck, even half decent night in was captured and posted, frozen in time in my collection of albums. I think I hit into the hundreds. My photo obsession was nothing new, just in the excitement of the new craze, my albums were no longer filling up space in a cupboard, but now able to share at the click of a button. Great eh?

So when did things change? I suppose, I always had a sense something didn’t sit right as my philosophy of ‘Facebook; not for announcing births, deaths or marriages’ stood firm. I didn’t announce my engagement, marriage, pregnancy or firstborn through social media. (But one friend took the latter into their own hands and saved us the trouble).

So here’s why Facebook and I fell out of love…

1. Attempting to be serious and professional – as my career progressed, some of the lovely pals I made at work now reported in to me. It didn’t seem so great to be doing a performance review on Monday morning when the guy saw pictures of me rolling around the travel lodge foyer floor at a wedding on the Saturday night. Cue Mass cull #1.

2. 900 friends? My arse! Someone once told me that you can count your true friends on one hand. Not me I thought smugly, I have 968 friends. Yeah right…let’s be honest, you saw that girl from school in Sainsburys and you pretended you hadn’t seen her. And that friend of a friend, you only met her once on a hen night 6 years ago. That work colleague? You can’t stand him. Cue mass cull #2.

3.Ooh, that’s awkward. You sent some of those 900 friends to the doomed world of de friended, and one just re-requested you. You make up a lame excuse about your account playing up and add them back.

4. Fear factor friend retention. The next cull, you are too scared to remove half the people you want to in case they notice and serve up some hate in the actual real world. You hide their drivel in your news feed and panic next time you see them that you might get Sussed. All seems a little….false?

5. The X factor: being judged. I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say a lot of people use Facebook as an unhealthy stalking medium. I’m not talking a stalker of the crazy sexual nature, but there are just people you know you nosed at, who You would be horrified if they knew your game. Maybe it’s someone you look up to. Maybe someone you don’t like? Its a whole side of Facebook, with its widely linked up participants, that I really don’t sit comfortably with. Who is looking at me? You? Right now? And all those 99 photo albums you put on there? Sadly, we all judge each other by what we see. I’ve been party to many a conversation where phones are out, photos have been heckled. Have you seen this bride? Awful outfit? ugly baby? I’m not proud to say I’ve done it, but it’s true.

6. Becoming a parent. This was a major turning point. I never posted a scan picture, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post sacred pictures of my brand new baby for the world to see. I wasn’t ready to ‘share her’ until every actual person I cared about had seen her in the flesh. She got her FB premiere at 6 weeks old because by then she was just too damned cute not to. Hence the problem. It’s just waaay to easy to want to share that overflowing love of your child with everyone you know at the click of a button. Yet, I didn’t want to be one of those mums reporting in every milestone, moment….poo. It was a battle daily.

7. Her look said it all. She was maybe 16 weeks old or so – playing beautifully on the floor as I sat next to her, scrolling through my news feed. As I glanced down, those huge eyes gave me a look that broke my heart. I realised it then and there that I was sacrificing this precious time with my baby to read about someone’s bad day, latest potty training update, night out, views on the gory party. That’s the thing with being at home all day – it’s just too easy to become reliant on the world outside via your phone. That day I deactivated my account until I returned to work when TG was one.

8. Status| Miserable. It’s no coincidence that the majority of pictures and status updates are representing what people want to be portrayed as. Happy. In Love. Popular. Busy. (Ok so there’s the odd friend who seems v depressed…have you called them lately?). I’ll be honest, good moods have been ruined by seeing things on social media. Have you ever been in a sad, dark place? it’s not always healthy to see others euphoria at that time. In fact, for every night out photo there is a reader home alone, lonely. For every scan picture posted, a heart broken woman desperate to be pregnant. For every family photo, someone missing someone terribly. For me, that feeling was too much and in a time of sadness, FB bye bye.

9. Friendship just got real. So often I hear people say they couldn’t cut FB because it would make it too hard to stay in touch with that friend in Oz, Russia, Timbuktoo. Or they would be left out of that night out, group chat etc. Now, I can say this will happen, but great news! The world keeps spinning. I promise you will retain the true friends you need in your life. You might even, like me, take up real communication again. Phone calls, personal e mails, texts. When you see some old work colleague you can ask what they have been up to and mean it. That night out you got left out from? You don’t even know about it hooray! And anyway, you were out with the girls via your what’s app group chat.

10. Growing up. Those photos of the 22 year old me are amazing memories, for my eyes only. As a thirty something wife, mum, I don’t necessarily want them to be at the click of a button to my husbands work colleagues, mums at the school gate, new place of work. Sure, I could unpick them, but for all of the above reasons, for me it’s been fun, but I’m happy in the here and now. Engaged with life, present for my children. Going old school with my photos in real albums. My girls can choose for themselves if they want to capture their memories in social media, that is not for me to dictate. (hence my children do not feature in my blog by name or face).

So, little me, in the minority here. I’m ready to face the wrath of Facebook lovers! It’s just my personal choices, for you to think about.

I know what you’re thinking..Blogger? tweeter? instagrammer? It’s just…..different to me? I’m don’t feel I’m being judged as my followers are parents like me. That doesn’t change my views on my own privacy of course. And now, it’s all for the blogging which I love.

Hope you Liked it. not in the Facebook sense, of course 😉 sorry, you won’t find MMT on there….for now…I’m hoping it isn’t a necessary part of blogging or my theory is screwed!
X MMT

Facebook has never been my platform of choice, thankfully it wasn’t around when I was in my teens and twenties but I still can’t get to grips with it I just find nobody ever sees the things that I post I much prefer twitter and instagram #TwinklyTuesday

I think a lot of people are growing up and not using Facebook the same way as when they were in their teenage years/20’s. People don’t chat like they used to on FB, it’s actually a bit boring. We agree, we’re not fans anymore… #TwinklyTuesday

Maybe I’m a bit extreme going cold turkey, but even though I was so bored of it I was compelled to check what was going on every 5 minutes! It’s pretty liberating letting it go. I’m embracing the JOMO 🙂 joy of missing out xMMT

Ugh, I hate Facebook too. Hate it for its total lack of flexibility with regards to privacy options. Now that I’m a blogger I want to post in blogging groups, but can’t do that without sharing my surname. Which I don’t want to do. Oh well, Twitter is much more fun anyway. #TwinklyTuesday

Really? Guess it wouldn’t be any good for my blog either then? It is so widely used, I prefer the small tuned community Twitter and Instagram brings. It’s a personal thing but glad I’m not alone in my opinions. Thanks for reading 🙂 x MMT

Well, as far as I can tell you can have your blog page on Facebook and you can post on there as your blog without giving away your identity, but if you want to post on group pages you can’t do it as your blog page; you have to use your personal account. I think the tide is turning against Facebook anyway.

I have mixed feelings with facebook. I used to love it and I was using it all the time. Now I’m getting bored of it too. Since I’m blogging (2 months) I’m trying to get my FB page out there and it is so hard to do it. I have to use my personal account to interact and I find that so annoying! I prefer twitter too! xx
#wineandboobs

It’s weird because for all I love facebook, I also enjoyed this post and actually agree with a lot of what you said. My personal rule for use is I wouldn’t put anything on there that I would be embarrassed of if people outside my close circle of friends saw it. I’m long over due a cull but I feel mean doing it. As I don’t post anything personal I always think who’s it hurting if the girl I haven’t seen in 12 years knows I was bored at work today lol. #wineandboobs
Debbiehttp://www.myrandommusings.blogspot.com

Really interesting post! FB is definitely loosing its appeal for me too! I think it becomes too easy to be “in touch” with distant acquaintances and not very well connected with real friends! Thanks for sharing on #wineandboobs!

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Facebook although I am not sure I could abandon it. I agree on the colleagues thing I have also been very careful about adding people you work with … awkward!

Love the post, I am really over Facebook and really only keep it for the blog and family members. It’s become such a drama infested world. I agree that blogging is different and such a great supportive community of people. #famjamlinky

Completely agree.. Have done cull after cull myself! In fact I don’t really have a personal FB at all. Now with the blog I feel as though I need to pay more attention but thats it and as far as it goes and to be honest I have joined some great blogging groups which have really helped me in the first few months but the days of the drunken photos are long gone…must learn how to delete them!!

I think Facebook is struggling to keep up with the real world anyway. I keep my account to keep in contact with family I do not get to see very often with them living in different countries. Apart from that anyone who has the pleasure of being friends with me on FB do not have much to read on my wall! ha! Great blog of truths, I hear you on all of the above! #famjamlinky

I feel very similar! I don’t announce anything on FB – I barely even know half of my ‘friends’ that are on there anymore. I do like how it keeps me in touch with other friends around the world – but I still struggle to share anything on their anymore (feels too much like uni when all that over-sharing happened!!) #famjamlinky

You gotta do what you gotta do, it sounds like it was making you a bit miserable. I am on facebook, I check in, play games and get out, I am not on there much. But now that I am at home, due to illness, 80% of the time, it sure helps me to keep up with people that I can’t get out to see. But I’m not miserable yet, LOL, if I get there, I’ll follow your cue.

I don’t love the self-promotion or oversharing aspects of Facebook, but as someone who’s lived on 3 continents, I’m certainly one of those who appreciates it keeping me connected with friends and more importantly groups of friends that it’s impossible to see in person. But I feel about Instagram and smartphones the way you feel about Facebook. So there you have it. I don’t have a smartphone. But I do use Facebook. Thanks for linking with #TwinklyTuesday.

I don’t like Facebook at all, but I couldn’t work out the reason why – but you’ve just answered that for me with this post, I was reading through it thinking ‘yes, that’s right, thats why I don’t like it!’ I’m still on there but for now that’s because of blogging groups I’m in, and my NCT friends have a group on there too where we arrange all our get togethers. I have banned myself for using it for anything else!

This is sooo true!! My fav bit “you unfriend someone then hastily readd them when they notice” amazing! I’m the same. My stalker side and blogger side likes Facebook (just coz I like a good chin wag) but my introvert side hates it. I couldn’t give two shits what anyone’s had for dinner and I hate to read that everyone else’s kids are sleeping but mine!! Go to hell Facebook!! (In a nice way please don’t ban me Mr.Z)

I have a love hate relationship with Facebook. The friends not always being the issue but family at times. It is truly just a time waster in every aspect. I do run a FB group simply because FB ruined my forum along with many others.

Well, I have got here from stalking your blog so not sure how different that is to stalking you on fb hahaha. I get what you mean and I absolutely love that fact that you’ve removed yourself from it. I don’t really get the point of taking a short break as it’s doesn’t seem like a long-term solution. I found I was wasting too much time on it so the app had to go and now I have to make an effort to access it via the browser.

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Hey, how's it going? I'm Sarah, a mum of two little girls, living in the Garden of England that is Kent.
Life is great, but don't expect it to be all rose tinted glasses in this blog. (Maybe rosé tinted?). Being a Mum is the nuts, an absolute game changer, but also flippin' harder than I was expecting it to be! This blog is a little snippet into the life of a (once) cool Mum, muddling through this chapter of life called PARENTING x